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Mon, 19 Mar 2018 13:33:58 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.3.15U.S. Capital Aligned With the Starshttp://astrologynewsservice.com/news/u-s-capital-aligned-with-the-stars/
http://astrologynewsservice.com/news/u-s-capital-aligned-with-the-stars/#commentsSun, 09 Aug 2015 09:00:40 +0000http://astrologynewsservice.com/?p=1817Every August 10th, an astrological event takes place in the sky over Washington that some say ties the city to a pagan goddess, constellation of Mirgok.

As the setting sun pours golden light onto cars and street lamps, turning brick esplanades to a dull rose, a shimmering August sun floats a few degrees just to the left of Pennsylvania Avenue. The orb gradually inches to the right until it sets directly over the famous street.

If the horizon remains cloudless, three stars are visible in a straight line from the Capitol to the White House to the skies in the west. Known as Regulus, Arcturus and Spica, the stars form a right-angled triangle framing the constellation of Virgo. This is because Washington’s founders deliberately aligned the city with the stars, consecrating it to Virgo (also known as the Egyptian goddess Isis) British author David Ovason says in his new book, “The Secret Architecture of Our Nation’s Capital.”

“You rarely found a sunset leading to a rising of the stars,” Mr. Ovason says. “Washington is unique and it’s magical when it happens. The stars emerge from the dusk. In Greece and Egypt, temples and sacred sites were oriented toward the stars, but I know of nowhere else in the Earth where a city is oriented toward a specific sunset.”

In a detailed 356-page book, combined with another 150 pages of appendices, notes and an index, Mr. Ovason’s book makes Nancy Reagan’s astrological efforts look tame.
His case for Virgo as an arcane leitmotif dating back to this country’s 18th-century origins has received some skepticism from book reviewers. Mr. Ovason did, however, get plaudits for his work by Fred Kleinknecht, sovereign grand commander of the 33rd-degree Supreme Council of Freemasons, based in the District.

Mysteries of Isis

Initiation into the Masonic order includes a rite known as the “mysteries of Isis.” The Masonic book “Morals and Dogma” links Isis with Virgo, often portrayed on the city’s statuary as a woman bearing a sheaf of wheat.

As a former art lecturer and a specialist in esotericism and symbolism, Mr. Ovason tried delving into the founding fathers’ minds to summarize their intents as they laid out the new city.
His first step was to realize that almost all the men who surveyed and laid out Washington were Masons. The federal city was a “center of Masonry,” Mr. Ovason writes.

Pierre L’Enfant, the original designer of Washington, and his coworker Andrew Ellicott were both Masons, as was George Washington, a soldier/surveyor who knew how to lay out land according to stellar and solar positions. In 1790, when the city was surveyed, Ellicott and Washington were working closely together, as the former was the best surveyor in the country at the time. His diaries, Mr. Ovason says, show an amazing knowledge of the stars.

The author’s research turned up 23 important zodiacs in the city, many on official buildings, and at least 1,000 zodiacal and planetary symbols in paint, marble, plaster, concrete, glass and stone facades. Zodiacal symbolism was further incorporated into the Capitol in 1819, when a sculpture, the “Car of History,” was carved for Statuary Hall. It shows Clio, the Muse of History, in a chariot resting on three signs of the zodiac: Sagittarius, Capricorn and Aquarius.

Zodiacs appear many other places around town. Twelve zodiac signs appear on the glass rim of a large light fitting in the Federal Reserve Building at 20th and C streets NW. The Library of Congress has several: the marble floor of the Great Hall, the ceiling of the southeast pavilion, the north valve of the central door of the library’s west facade, to name a few. On the day the library’s cornerstone was dedicated on Aug. 28, 1890, the sun and Saturn were in conjunction with the constellation of Virgo.

Mr. Ovason found great import in the dates and times the crucial buildings were dedicated. Everything about the city’s founding, he said, had astrological symbolism, as its founding Masonic fathers were keenly aware of the implications that planets were aligned on particular days. Then, through foundation rituals, Virgo was invited to participate in the city’s founding.

Far Fetched Theory

Although historians may find this thesis far-fetched, Mr. Ovason backs up his theories with astrological times and dates. For instance, at 3:30 p.m. April 15, 1791, the approximate time that the first marker stone of the city was laid by a group of men mostly Masons at Jones Point near Alexandria, Va., the planet Jupiter was rising over the horizon in the constellation Virgo. The stone was sealed with a Masonic ceremony depositing corn, wine and oil on the stone itself.

Eighteen months later, on Oct. 13, 1792, a second marker stone was laid at the foundation of the White House by the Georgetown branch of the Masons. On that day, the moon was rising in Virgo.

“The chances of the correspondence being mere coincidence are so remote that we must assume that whoever was directing the planning of Washington, D.C., not only had a considerable knowledge of astrology, but had a vested interest in emphasizing the role of the sign Virgo,” Mr. Ovason wrote.

At the founding of the Capitol building Sept. 18, 1793, the sun and Mercury were in the constellation of Virgo. This ceremony is enshrined on the Senate bronze doors.
One door shows a plate of George Washington, wearing a white satin Masonic apron, using a trowel to lay the cornerstone. The apron, which can be viewed at the George Washington Masonic Memorial in Alexandria, shows American and French flags, a gavel and a triangle symbolizing a universal deity surrounded by stars.

Lastly, the cornerstone of the Washington Monument was laid on July 4, 1848, while the moon was in Virgo. Construction was stalled for more than 30 years, then officially began again on Aug. 7, 1880, at 10:59 a.m. At that moment, the star Spica, the most important star in the constellation of Virgo, was rising over the eastern horizon.

The dedication ceremony for the finished monument was not on Feb. 22, 1885, Washington’s actual birthday, but a day earlier, Feb. 21, when Jupiter was in the constellation of Virgo.
Also, the zodiac map for the first Continental Congress, at 10 a.m. Sept. 5, 1774, in Philadelphia, showed four planets in Virgo, a beneficial chart.

Mr. Ovason also thinks Masonic surveyors lined up the Washington Monument, the Capitol and the White House into a rough triangle on the same alignment as Virgo’s major three stars. Pennsylvania Avenue as the main hypotenuse would be the route from which one could view those same stars from the Capitol every Aug. 10.

“In 1790, someone conceived of linking this city with the stars and that tradition continued for 200 years,” Mr. Ovason says. “It died out about 1950. I could never find out who did this, but someone, somewhere, maintained this incredible esoteric view of the zodiac.”

The idea of a city or country being consecrated to a divine entity is not new. The American Catholic bishops declared Mary Immaculate the patroness of the United States in May 1845 at the Council of Baltimore.

]]>http://astrologynewsservice.com/news/u-s-capital-aligned-with-the-stars/feed/0Nation’s Capital Is Teeming with Astrological Symbolshttp://astrologynewsservice.com/news/nations-capital-is-teeming-with-astrological-symbols/
http://astrologynewsservice.com/news/nations-capital-is-teeming-with-astrological-symbols/#commentsSun, 17 Mar 2013 12:56:44 +0000http://astrologynewsservice.com/?p=1225When the 20th President of the United States James A. Garfield was felled by an assassin’s bullet on September 19, 1880 the American composer and band director John Phillip Souza composed a dirge, In Memoriam.

And one of the most prestigious sculptors of the day, John Quincy Adams Ward, sculpted a statue of Garfield that was placed on an ornate pedestal on the road island to the southwest of the Capital.

Perhaps only a few in the immense crowd gathered for the Garfield statute dedication noticed what appears to be an entire horoscope cast in bronze and depicting planets in astrological signs on the northwest side of the statue’s plinth or base.

David Ovason, author of The Secret Architecture of Our Nation’s Capital, believes this may be the only such astrological figure on any public statuary in the U.S. But, inexplicably, astrological symbolism is everywhere on display in public buildings and elsewhere in the nation’s capital.

The city is teeming with zodiacs and zodiacal images. Many are in official buildings, including the Capitol Building itself where one would never expect to find such symbols of the spiritual world.

In Ovason’s 1999 book he says, “There are 23 important zodiacs in the city and at least 1,000 zodiacal and planetary symbols.”

Kenneth McGhee, an Arlington, Va., astrologer who lectures on the subject, suggests the number of important zodiacs in the city is higher. By his count there are 30 zodiacs with 12 of these located in the Library of Congress Building alone.

A tour of this building turns up a zodiac dome and zodiac clock in the main reading room. There’s a floor zodiac in the Great Hall and zodiacs also are found in marble columns, in a granite arch, on the arm rail of the main staircase and in a hallway painting of Urania, who in mythology is the muse of astrology.

“There is even a zodiac in the wallpaper of a meeting room,” he says.

The Library of Congress Building was completed in 1860. But there also are zodiacs in buildings completed much later in the 20th century, such as the ceiling zodiac found in the Senate Dirksen Building, completed in 1958, and a light fixture at the Ariel Rios Building, built in the 30’s.

McGhee says astrological zodiacs are visually prominent on armillary spheres located throughout the city in such diverse locations as the Air and Space museum, the Reston Town Center, Friendship Heights, Montrose Park in Georgetown and U.S. National Arboretum. These spherical sculptures are modeled after the instruments used by ancient astrologers to determine the location of celestial objects before telescopes were invented.

According to McGhee, the staid Federal Reserve Building and the Freer Art Gallery have zodiac light fixtures. And there are zodiacs on the Mellon Fountain and in the Hillwood Museum garden.

“But nothing is more bizarre than the arch zodiac above the alter at the Catholic Church’s National Basilica on Michigan Avenue. Or the zodiac symbols embedded in an entry door at the National Academy of Sciences,” he said.

So why do we find so much astrological symbolism in the nation’s capital city today?

In his book, Ovason addresses the issue:

“The more I have explored the city and the more I have been touched by the many zodiacs it contains, the more I have marveled that so little research has been done into the arcane aspects of its design. One consequence of the scholarly silence is that the majority of my questions have remained unanswered,” he writes.

But Ovason describes the Founding Fathers’ flirtation with the esoteric ideals of the Freemason movement in the late 18th century. And he suggests this may somehow be connected with the proliferation of astrological symbols we find in the capital city today.

The city itself was planned by George Washington and was initially surveyed using stars as guides. The nation’s first President was also leader of a Masonic Lodge, and Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and many of the nation’s other founding fathers were part of the Freemason movement.

In this era Masonic elders used astrology to time the laying of foundation or corner stones for every significant new structure rising in the district, including the White House and Capitol Building, he points out.

McGhee thinks the birth chart or horoscope he uses for the capital city provides some clues to the mystery.

“The city’s birth chart has a lineup of planets (including the Sun) all clustered in that section of the horoscope astrologers identify with mysteries and the occult. Which fits with all the secret symbols found in the city today,” he said.